The fight against AIDS

The fight against AIDS

ON NOVEMBER 23rd UNAIDS, the UN body charged with combatting the AIDS epidemic, released its latest report. This carries good news. Though some 33m people are infected, the rate of new infections is falling—down from 3.1m a year a decade ago to 2.6m in 2009. Moreover, as the map shows, the figure is falling fastest in many of the most heavily infected countries. The reason is a combination of behavioural change (people are losing their virginity later, are being less promiscuous and are using condoms more), a big reduction in mother-to-child transmission at birth and through breast-feeding, and the roll-out of drug treatment for those already infected. Besides prolonging life, antiretroviral drugs make those taking them less likely to pass the virus on. More than 5m people in poor and middle-income countries are now on these drugs, though another 10m could benefit. (The remainder of those infected are not yet ill enough for the drugs to do do them good.) The problem, as always, is money. UNAIDS reckons the fight needs about $25 billion a year to be fully effective. At the moment, the sum spent is around $17 billion. Not a bad fraction of what is needed, but one that it will be difficult to sustain in the face of the world's current economic difficulties.

Readers' comments

It is a great relief to see that the campaigns in Africa and India are paying dividends.

The chart would have been more useful if total numbers in increasing countries were shown. Just how big a disaster is starting in Central Asia and the Caucasus? I really hope nothing on the scale that Africa has experienced.

Interesting read of what looks like well-collected evidence. However, I find it hard to believe that such damning evidence would have escaped the attention of the plethora of independent epidemiological institutions that exist in the world. Any diseased engineered with "splicing" would have significant markers in its DNA that gave away its artificial origin.

The only plausible explanation for your theory is that the secretive organization you claim to be the creators of the HIV virus possessed technology in the 80s that is far beyond today's cutting-edge research. And unexplainably advanced technology is of course the hallmark of tinfoil-hat theories everywhere.

Aids in Africa may reduce further as POPE has given permission to use condoms. :) Jokes apart, law and order in many nations of Africa is fast improving and in 2010 alone numerous African countries are getting democratic. Read the full story of how this will improve their condition(Health and wealth)http://www.businessnbeyond.com/2010/08/democracy-in-africa-ceos-can-smil...

93% of the world's opium and heroin is produced in Afghanistan, trafficked through Central Asia and it enters the community and rots Central Asian Society, and health through transmitting diseases.
This poses a a security risk to week societies.
The Problem is how to stop the drugs trade, or regulate the drugs trade.

Strange that they wouldn't mention (granted it is just a blurb) that the antiretroviral drugs studies have just come back showing a 90% decrease in AIDS susceptibility for those who take them daily, so these numbers should drop even more precipitously provided production can be ramped up on the antiretrovirals.

In the "time trends" tab, you can see countries like Swaziland and Malawi showing a terrifying increase in the '90's peaking a few years ago. Undoubtedly, HIV decline is a driving force in both trends.